It has long been recognized that one of the problems associated with cooking or grilling foods on a grill comprised of uniformly spaced apart rods is that the foods often tend to stick to the rods. This is especially a problem with foods, such as hamburger, which tend to reform during cooking so that a substantial portion of the upper surface of the rods beneath the cooking food is surrounded by the food. Also, as a result, the portions of the underside of the food which are not supported by the rods are generally located in the space between the rods when it is time to turn the food or remove the food from the grill. Because of the tendency for foods, such as hamburger, to stick to and conform to the upper surfaces of the rods, it is generally very difficult, if not impossible, to remove the food item from the grill with a flat spatula having a straight distal edge without tearing the food item and significantly compromising the integrity of the food item.
In order to reduce tearing and disintegration of food items when they are being removed from a wire rod grill, various spatulas or food handling devices have been developed which have fingers, tines or projections which are spaced apart to fit into the space between the rods of the grill, so that the fingers can be used to engage the underside of the food item and lift the food item from the grill. One such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,213,779. However, the fingers of this device are bent upwardly away from the rearward continuous plate section of the spatula head. This has the disadvantage of forcing the food item to be bent as it is being removed from the grill, hence stressing the food item in such manner as to compromise its integrity. Another disadvantage is that because the food item must slide upwardly along the rearward plate section of the spatula head, there is greater resistance against sliding the spatula under the food item than would be encountered if the fingers were not bent with respect to the plate section of the spatula head. Also, the rivets used to attach the plate section of the spatula head to the handle present protuberances which also increase resistance against sliding the spatula head under a food item cooked on a grill.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,747,911 discloses a food handling and scrapping tool for use with grills which includes a plurality of notches and projections defined between the notches, with the notches and projections being configured so that the projections can extend into the area between the rods of a grill to enable the spatula head to be worked under the food item and slide the food back onto the spatula head. However, the projections are not sufficiently long to allow any substantial lifting of the food item from the grill, especially when the upper surface of the spatula is tilted into a nearly horizontal position to allow the spatula head to be more easily slid under the food item, as opposed to a more inclined orientation which would tend to push on an edge of the food item and cause tearing and loss of integrity of the food item. Also, as with the spatula of U.S. Pat. No. 3,213,779, the food handling and scrapping tool described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,747,911 has the handle extension riveted directly to the spatula head.
Accordingly, there remains a need for an improved grill spatula for removing a food items, especially hamburgers, from a grill without tearing and compromising the integrity of the food items, and which allows the spatula head to be slid more easily under the food item and lifted from the grill.